Barbara's Reflection
by bookishlaura
Summary: My second reflection of series 6. This time from Barbara's POV. Sort of spoilery. Takes place in a flux. Will be AU by the end of series 6. Kind of rambly.


Barbara looked at her meagre possessions. She had come to Nonnatus House from Liverpool with her life in a suitcase and a handbag. Now she was leaving to start a new life with Tom as a vicar's wife. It was a role she had known and did since birth. She had been trained for the life through visiting her father's parishioners as his assistant, never his daughter.

Canon Reginald Gilbert had been a firm but fair father. He fought the injustices to the end and as such had passed it onto his daughter. Barbara had thought about this. Out of herself, her elder sister Margaret and brother Edmund, she was the only one fighting for what was right. It was she that secretly read medical books instead of novels as her bedtime reading from the age of eight. It was she who fought her way into nursing school, against her parent's wishes. Her belief in fighting was second to her belief in God. She thought of her middle class roots. Despite her father's parish being in the poorest part of Liverpool, Barbara and her siblings had lived a very middle class life. Her mother had insisted on the three of them. All three had attended private school were elocution lessons were given so that she did not speak with a Scouse accent. Her parents had grown up in the Home Counties but left not long after their marriage for Liverpool.

Her sister Maggie had questionable taste when it came to clothes as Barbara had seen when Maggie had loaned her the use of her bathing suit for the trip to South Africa. Tom had said she looked beautiful. Maggie was known for being class proud and passing off her belongings to people in need was her only good deed. Barbara knew Maggie thought that, by working in the East End of London and marrying a poor curate, she was lowering herself. Maggie had married at eighteen to a bank manager ten years her senior, she had produced four children in the first three years of marriage. While Maggie had been producing children, Barbara had been training to be a nurse and midwife. She could say that she had been present at every one of her nephews and nieces births.

Her brother Edmund was an architect. He was building the houses of the future while Barbara was dealing with the consequences of the past. She had admired her brother for his work in Liverpool. He was slowly courting one of his secretaries. All three Gilbert siblings had chosen different paths. One the traditional role of a woman, one a new occupation using a side to him that he did not realise he had and the other, a medical profession that she knew she was perfect for.

She looked at a picture she kept on the dressing table. It was her and all her family at her confirmation. It had been her greatest wish that her father would officiate at her wedding as he had at Maggie's. She had never thought of anyone else to do the job. He had christened, confirmed her and now she wanted him to marry her. It was a simple act that only a few people could bestow on their daughters. She had asked Angela Turner to be her bridesmaid since she could not decide between her friends. The little girl looked lovely in her light blue bridesmaid's dress and white shoes. Barbara had made it for Angela to wear with a wreath of white daisies and gardenias so that she looked like a little angel. Most of her friends from Liverpool could not make the wedding as it was short notice. She knew she would not miss them as it was only about Tom and her. She had her family there. The Nonnatuns were her family and the only member of her true family would be marrying her.

She gazed at the room she was about to leave. Since her first night it had been her room and then she had shared it with Phyllis once she had arrived. It had become her home. Nonnatus House was her home. She knew that as she was getting married her home would not be Nonnatus House but with her tall, dark and handsome vicar. The man who was her soulmate. Tom.

She had fought her entire life and now at the moment where her life was taking a new path she wondered if she had took a different road whether it would have still led her to Tom.


End file.
